$450m Company Uses a .Club Domain Name

Techmeme highlighted a TechCrunch article about a company called Cred that just raised a $120 million Series B round of funding. The Indian company had previously raised a considerable amount of funding, reportedly bringing its total funding to date to $145 million. With this latest round of funding, the company “is now valued between $430 million to $450 million,” according to the TechCrunch article.

Of interest to domain investors is that Cred operates on the Cred.Club new gTLD domain name. From what I can tell, it appears the company acquired Cred.Club sometime between July and October of 2018. Using DomainTools’ Whois History tool, it looks the domain name was acquired from a domain investor, as I recognize the former registrant’s name and the domain name had been parked with Sedo nameservers.

I looked at NameBio, and there are no publicly reported sales for Cred.Club. This would indicate that the domain name was not sold directly via Sedo because Sedo generally reports its sales. It is possible the buyer or seller requested confidentiality, but whatever the case, the acquisition price was not revealed.

Somewhat surprisingly, I do not see any .Club branding within the Cred logo to help customers understand what url the company is using for its website and email. Cred.com appears to be registered to a China-based registrant, and the domain name does not resolve for me. CredClub.com is a domain name that is owned by HugeDomains and is priced at $2,695. It might behove the company to acquire this domain name on the off chance customers are confused and/or emails are not being delivered.

This should be a case domain investors highlight when identifying valuable brands that use a new gTLD domain name.

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Snoopy, do you ever get tired of criticizing all these startups using non-.coms?

Who knows what these folks have planned. Maybe they’re seconds away from rebranding altogether after being funded and their investors know it. Or maybe they love the name cred.club and their passion for it drives them each and every day.

Generally speaking, for startups to get significant financing there has to be some value to the business and some faith in the founders and team. It’s more than a domain name. A domain is obviously important but it’s not the most important thing when evaluating a startup.

For more than a one dimensional view of a startup the founders, team, technology, business plan, progress and many other things have to be considered — Snoopy, you understand that right?

“Indian and Chinese companies are prone to making mistakes” – Snoopy

Snoopy, you definitely get a check for hubris but after reading so many of your comments criticizing startups it makes me wonder how many businesses you’ve started and the funding that you’ve secured… because you’re an expert, right?

I see you missed the last question in my post above, or were you answering “no” for both?

Seriously though, you have a set position – psychologists call it “fixed negative”. Studies have shown being “fixed negative” can have some really detrimental side effects ranging from upset tummy, constipation all the way to increased hubris.

You’d be so much happier and a better positioned investor and thinker if you were more open to honestly reflecting on facts and evidence (especially facts and evidence for and against gTLDs).

Don’t you want to be happier? Don’t you want your comments to make more sense?

Every morning I wake up to an email box full of inquiries from India, Nigeria, and Indonesia

Our completion rate from Nigeria, and Indonesia is 0%

From India is is about 0.10%

Just because someone can start a business doesn’t mean they understand domain name usage, or visibility. Lucky for most it can come later, and they can save themselves.

We see one off examples all the time, they are simply stories to give people like Matt hope. People like Matt used to go to gtld dot link and say the same things. The site is offline, and all but a few literally lost their shirt.

GTLD’s are not for domainers, the registries have taken steps to block domainers out, and become the domainer themselves. They just throw these guys a few crumbs to keep them
wet, and renewing the ever increasing renewal which go up next month again.

1. Why are you equating an Indian startup that raised $120M with a Nigerian spammer?

2. I may have visited gtld.link once (possibly twice) but from my memory didn’t make single post and probably spent less than 5 minutes on their site. It’s cute though, that you keep saying “People like Matt…” Snoopy, I mean Mike, you’re maybe a little too obsessed and a bit weird but that’s ok.

3. gTLDs are not for domainers I agree – they are for end users and this is zero sum, .com portfolio holders will continue to feel the pinch and as we’ve seen there will be more and more unethical tactics to try and cling on to the narrative of why end users (even small businesses) shouldn’t use new perfect-fit, meaningful domain extensions: “email bleed”, “inherent value of .com’s”, “visitor confusion”, “loss of traffic to the .com”, “will not rank”… very dishonest tactics all through fear and greed of some (not all) domain investors and brokers. If I am wrong about this then I would love to be educated with some real, meaningful data… so far none has ever been produced.

4. “Ask a gtld yuppie to talk about some of their sales, awkward silence.” – Snoopy, I mean Mike, we both know you have read about my sales:http://www.developed.nyc/investors-experience-nyc-domains/
You were even the first to make a comment on that article. Also I wrote other follow-up articles last year detailing $30k+ in sales with another $14,000 (2 x $7,000) sales of .nyc domains that I paid $20 for.

So Snoopy, I mean Mike, are your unethical tactics working? Care to respond to the above or produce some magic data?

Snoopy, I mean Mike – you ignore my questions, mistake funded Indian startups with Nigerian spammers, claim there’s no evidence of sales, ignore information when presented with evidence of sales…

Were you one of those kids trying to jam the square-faced block into the round hole as a kid? Your parents trying to guide your hand, explaining it’s not going to fit and you’d angrily pull away shouting “yes it will!”…

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